The devil’s advocate who defended Dominique Pelicot: ‘It will be you and me against the whole world’

The trial of Dominique Pelicot and the 50 men who raped his wife at his invitation while she was drugged has played out like a Greek tragedy. The narrative is one of horrifying deeds. One of the most complex characters in the story is that of Beatrice Zavarro, already known as “the devil’s advocate” for her role as the lawyer defending Dominique Pelicot over the past four months in Avignon, in the south of France. After the verdict was announced on December 19 in the country’s most high-profile case in years, she met journalists, spoke on the phone and pondered whether they should launch an appeal.

Petite at 145 cm (4′75) and never without her burgundy-colored horn-rimmed glasses on her head, Zavarro has become one of the trial’s most iconic characters. She has been a lawyer since 1996 and has a long track record of defending criminals. She is also known for having represented Christine Deviers-Joncour, sentenced in 2003 to 18 months in a sleaze trial involving the oil company Elf-Aquitaine. But the Pelicot case has been a personal, tough and exhausting challenge. “I have the feeling that I’ve overcome it,” Zavarro told EL PAÍS at the courthouse gates. “But I never hesitated to defend him, not for a single second. I am a lawyer and he has the right to a defense.”

Zavarro was recommended to Dominique Pelicot by a fellow inmate in the Baumettes prison yard. Well aware of the potential repercussions, Zavarro didn’t hesitate to take the case. She just wanted Pelicot to understand their position, as she explained to Le Monde newspaper. “It will be you and me against the whole world,” she warned him, in the calm monotone she used throughout. Zavarro knew her colleagues would make her life miserable and she entered into the fray as one might a war. “But I couldn’t have imagined the loneliness. In no other case has it been this intense,” she said. She was subjected to insults and moral criticism: “You are a woman, you shouldn’t defend him,” was the general gist.

The issue was perhaps not so much one of morality, but strategy. Zavarro approached the case from the start with the idea that each defendant is responsible for their actions and so her client could not be answerable for the crimes of the other 50 men who raped Gisèle Pelicot. Zavarro’s strategy was to turn Dominique Pelicot into a mirror for society. “We are all capable of doing horrible things,” she told EL PAÍS. “Nobody knows what an individual may or may not do. We see it with children as well. They may have behaviors that are not a reflection of their personality. I’m going to try to get a message across that the man I’m defending is not a monster. What he has done is monstrous, that’s indisputable, and I am not going to minimize his responsibility. I am simply saying that it is possible to do something monstrous without being a monster.”

Zavarro’s strategy did not get Pelicot a lighter sentence. The court sent him down for 20 years, the maximum possible in the French justice system. The second longest sentence was the 15 years given to Romain V., who went to the Pelicot house six times to rape Gisèle, despite being HIV-positive. In treatment for 20 years, Romain V. had a low viral load and was therefore not contagious, his lawyer said, a claim supported by medical documents. The other three most severe sentences of 13 years were given to men who had also raped Gisèle six times: Charly A., Jérôme V. and Dominique D. No one else came close to the 20 years given to Pelicot.

It was almost impossible for Zavarro’s strategy to win Pelicot any measure of sympathy. The lawyer knew that. “The principle of individualization regarding the sentence has been applied, that is indisputable,” Zavarro said. “Beyond that the court has given its verdict. The court has distinguished between what Pelicot and all those men did. We are now considering an appeal.” She believes that Dominique Pelicot has had the opportunity to be an active part of the process, “not a mere spectator.” And Gisèle? “I think she has found some relief. But I am not her lawyer.” Rather, she played the devil’s advocate.

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